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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

40k Orks - BattleWagon Rush

As I mentioned in my article The Bay Area Open, I am headed to San Francisco at the end of next month in an attempt to assert my dominance over nerds from a different area code. My army of choice is a common Ork theme the Battlewagon Rush. I have used it effectively for a while now to smash my opponents faces into the dirt!! Deff Rollas, Shootas and Burnas seem to cover a lot of the needs of the current meta and I am going to go into detail on each of these

Troops
7 Nobs - 1 with Power Klaw and Waagh Banner, 1 with Power Klaw and Boss Pole, 1 with a Power Klaw, 1 with a Big Choppa and a Boss Pole, 1 with a Big Choppa, 1 with a Kombi Skorcha, 1 Painboy. All have cybork bodies and 'eavy armor
Dedicated Transport - Battlewagon with Deff Rolla, Red Paint Job, Armor Plates and a Big Shoota

20 Boys with shootas. 1 upgraded to nob with Boss Pole and Power Klaw.

Armor 14 Battlewagons are a tough nut to crack for a lot of people. Being able to move 13inches means you can stay out of melta range until its time to strike. Deff Rollas are amazing. There are games where I am putting out 10+ str 10 hits a turn with this trio of wagons and that wins games.

Diversified Nobs - These are a very hard unit. Not the hardest, but waaay the hell up there with Thunderwolf Cavalry and Blood Crushers. The thing they have going for them is they are a lot more cost effective and they are troops in this army. Very nice! Having a 5++ and FNP makes them our hammer unit and will usually be accompanied by Ghazghul for the ultimate in killing glory. On the charge we are looking at 8 Str 7 hits, 4 Str 4 poisoned hits 12 Str 9 hits and 7 Str 10 hits when Ghaz is with them. That many high str hits usually means my opponent is picking up a lot of models with turn.

Ghaz - He's a mac truck. When people say hes OP or whatever, they are right. His ability, Prophet of the Waagh is amazing in this army, as it gives us a charge range of 25 inches in 1 turn. I heard that being able to cover half of the width of the table is good. Also 7 attacks on the charge at Str10. Str10 hits win.

Boys - Alright, you might think, a shitty ork cost 6 points how good can he be? Alone, they suck nuts. In a group of 20+ they become very hard to deal with. They are the underestimated X-Factor in lots of my games as people just seem to ignore them until its too late. Also having to get through 19 bodies before you kill my powerfist is hard to do for the targets you should be hunting with your boyz squad.

Role Players:

Lootas - Our only real fire base, they should be used to get rid of any meltas / Combi Meltas they can. Shoot the fuck out the god damned Vindicare Assassin, and generally harass anything that doesn't need to die immediately but needs to be pressured. I like to put shots into Long Fangs or other Devastator / Havoc squads to get them to move. My lootas will always be in cover and if it comes to a shoot out, well I might get lucky and that's how lootas roll.

Grots - Late game objective campers. Never do shit, but 43 points to hold an objective is about as cheap as it gets.

Deffkopta - He is a suicide unit that most kill an essential transport or something with melta turn 1. Scout turbo boosting and a powerfist should let you kill shit. If not, well you wasted 70 points because he is always dead on turn 2.

Burnas - Heres the idea with burnas. You put them all in a battlewagon and shoot some squad with 15X's flamers. Seems bad ass on paper. The problem is people know whats going to happen and stay the fuck away from them. In 25+ I have yet to roast anything. I can get within charge range no problem, but there is fine art of having a unit stop within 7 inches of the burnas that I haven't quite mastered yet. One day though... oh that shits gonna be sweet!

Trukk Boys - Oh these dudes are neat! I use them as a powerfist missle. Usually to go after something with a little stronger of armor that wants to get close. Defiler, Vindicator, Land Speeders or I send them full speed at the firebase of an army. Parking lot guard, Long Fangs, Tervigon.... This unit is cheap and expendable, but often can kill a lot of shit before it gets dead. Being able to move 19 inches is nice and it gets me in places people didn't expect me to be and get me there quickly.

Big Mek - This dude is what keeps us alive. 4++ from shooting on your AV 14 Wagons is the end of most people. I give my mek a fist to make him killy as well. I don't like models that don't kill things. Stupid fucking grots.

Why it works:
While other, much sissier, armies fancy themselves on their ability to maneuver or shoot from range or DOA or whatever bullshit they are trying to do, the orks are a very blunt weapon. I move forward and run your shit over as it gets in my way. My harassing units are there to keep people out of my rear arc and target priority is as follows; Melta, anything within 13 of a battlewagon. That's it!!!

Of course I am not a moron, and a good general always makes good calls on the field, but that is the simplistic breakdown of it.

Why it doesn't work:

Storm Ravens fuck you up. Flying multimeltas and assault cannons can get through your AV 14 pretty easily and all we have is lootas to shoot back. I fucking hate Storm Ravens, and with the nerf to Nemesis DoomFists I expect to see almost all GK armies with Storm Ravens.

Overextending. The trick to driving your whole army up someones asshole is, sometimes their shit doesn't die. So you are left inside the asshole with a gang of their shit. It stinks and its not to your advantage. Deff Rollas are supposed to kill stuff and that alone tips the tide in your favor on the charge. The problem is when your Deff Rollas don't kill stuff. Learning the balance of how far to tank shock is the key to the Deff Rolla.

So that's the basic idea of how I get down. Feel free to toss me some comments or argue with me about the list.